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Mary Worth, 5/23/12
ROMANCE TIP: If you accidentally run into girl you just dumped over e-mail while grocery shopping with the girl you dumped her for, be sure to keep a death grip on girl number two, to ensure that you appear to girl number one as a walking Facebook profile picture of radiant happiness. To twist the knife further, be sure to tell girl number one that she “looks good” while basically shoving the much better looking girl number two in her face. At least, I’m assuming that Paula is supposed to be better looking than Dawn? This is Mary Worth, where everyone is hideously ugly, but Dawn is looking especially like a big-headed alien wearing a terrible wig, so probably that’s a good bet.
Funky Winkerbean, 5/23/12
“The compromise you proposed — that same-sex couples be allowed to attend the prom, so long as their faces and identities remain hidden behind the battlements of this Castle of Gayness — was really visionary. I’d love to show the pictures to my future children, if we were allowed to be photographed!”
Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/23/12
Remember, kids, with tiny bottles of liquor from your mini-bar, you can turn anyplace into your personal Tranquility Room!
Blondie, 5/22/12
We here at the Comics Curmudgeon spend a lot of time ragging on long-running legacy strips, which decades ago ceased to be the work of an artist/visionary and are instead staffed by hired guns in the employ of the intellectual property owners. But we don’t say enough about the advantages of this kind of working environment! Let’s say that, back in the summer of 2006, you come up with a funny joke — ha ha, did you know that the youth of today will pay good money for pants that are already torn up? mercy! — only to discover that lots and lots and lots and lots of your fellow cartoonists had the same idea! So you’d probably chuck it and try to come up with something else, if you were just working on your own. But if you were a cog in some legacy comic’s great machine, you’d have an advantage over your lone wolf competitors because you’d have access to what sociologists call “institutional memory.” You’d just file the joke idea away in the company Outlook calendar, and set an alarm for when everyone’s long forgotten about haha-torn-jeans jokes. Five years should do it, right? Let’s call it a shade short of six, just to be safe. Come 2012, whoever’s got your job (lord knows it won’t be you) will see the alert pop up and have the day’s strip already half written.
Six Chix, 5/22/12
Huh, against all expectations the puzzling tale of the two young birds that had sex and then had baby birds is continuing, and continuing to be puzzling! “I like the cute young guys, but this time I went to far, in that I had sex with a cute young guy and then had children, ugh.”
Dennis the Menace, 5/22/12
“Mostly I’ve just been in here watching TV, so I guess there really aren’t that many details to fill in. Hey, since you’re up, would mind wiping up the drool-puddle I’m leaving on the ottoman?”
Spider-Man, 5/22/12
Don’t worry, comic-book action fans, the current Spider-Man plot isn’t just going to be about how Peter Parker feels sexually threatened when his wife talks to handsome men! It’s also about how he feels inadequate when he talks to other superheroes.
Gil Thorp and Funky Winkerbean, 5/21/12
So it looks like the cross shape on Tasha’s neck that I dismissed as a shadow a few weeks back is … an elaborate cross neck tattoo after all? Which I find just a touch unrealistic, as it seems to me that any parent who thinks that “teen mother bringing her child to important events in her life” is the moral equivalent to “whore-monster seducing innocents to sluttery” wouldn’t be particularly high on her own daughter getting a large, highly visible tattoo, even if it celebrates the Lord. From this strip it looks like it might be just a big chunky earring, but take a look at the strip from a few weeks ago and explain to me how it’s supposed to be attached to anything but her neck.
Still, as ham-handed as Tasha’s mother’s disapproval is, at least the student at the center of this teen-morality plot has a name and personality and is in fact at the center of this teen-morality plot, unlike the poor gay teens of Funky Winkerbean, who exist solely to help Becky’s dad finally stand up to his wife and life companion of many years, who is awful and everyone hates her. Congrats, nameless gay teens! You may have briefly been the target of unjustified opprobrium, but you suffered that criticism to help prompt the straight father of a straight main character find his voice, and use that voice to yell at his wife in front of everyone. Savor this victory, none will be sweeter!
Mary Worth, 5/21/12
Oh, man, Mary’s world tour of self-congratulation is in full effect! Here’s Howie and Carm, whose problem wasn’t even interesting enough to merit a Mary Worth plot (and let that sink in for a second) but who have apparently popped up to make it clear that, even though we readers aren’t necessarily privy to all of Mary’s comings and goings, we should rest assured that she’s selflessly helping others at all times, even if we can’t see her.
If this were an ancient Greek tragedy (and given that most ancient Greek tragedies ended in horrific carnage, I dearly wish it were), all this Mary-congratulation would only be serving to reinforce her hubris. This would be followed by atë, the action taken by the hero that leads to her downfall. In this case, Mary, drunk with power and believing her meddling to be infallible, will run eagerly into the immovable object that is Dawn Weston’s love life.
Blondie, 5/20/12
Since you are all comics scholars, probably you are well aware of the Blondie origin story: Blondie was a carefree flapper girl who fell in love with Dagwood, the aimless son of a wealthy industrialist, and when the two decided to get hitched, Dagwood’s snooty family disinherited him for marrying a commoner, forcing him to get a job and become the suburban drone we know and love feel occasional twinges of mild affection for today.
Anyway, I have this theory that one of the secrets of the strip is that Mr. Dithers is in fact Dagwood’s father, the son having defiantly changed his last name to “Bumstead,” signifying his expulsion from the Dithers family’s monied Eden. This explains a number of the strip’s anomalies: Why Mr. Dithers employs Dagwood despite the Dagwood’s obvious incompetence and Mr. Dithers’s just as obvious contempt for him; why the families occasionally socialize, awkwardly; and why Dagwood, despite his bluster and hostility, is so nakedly desperate for Dithers’s approval. There have been few scenes in the comics more heart-rending and pathetic than the last two panels of this strip, in which Dagwood collapses into his chair in exhausted happiness after receiving such a minor display of affection from his boss.
Judge Parker, 5/20/12
Ooh, we’re the opening stages of this Judge Parker storyline, so let’s use the little details we’re being given to predict how it’s all going to go down! My guess: Sam gets invited on an impromptu fishing trip, Sam turns out to be surprisingly deft at fly-casting, Sam so impresses Avery Blackstone that Avery Blackstone hands over millions of dollars of his studio’s money for the film rights to Judge Parker Emeritus’s unreadable books, because rich guys who are good at awesome hobbies need to look out for each other. It’s slightly less certain, though still decently likely, that Peaches, being a sexy lady of dusky complexion who has a difficult relationship with her boss, will turn out to be a terrorist and/or spy.
Mark Trail, 5/20/12
It’s hard to tell from Mark’s exposition whether the horrifying vision in the final panel here depicts two slugs having sex or attempting to devour one another, but either way it’s easily one of the most scarring thing I’ve seen this week. Once again, fun facts about nature reinforce my long-held philosophy of avoiding nature in all its slimy, horny and/or carnivorous glory.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/19/12
Uh-oh, in her sad and futile attempt to finally get ahead of Rex in their ongoing dickishness contest, June has gone a little off-script when it comes to her more immediate task, namely keeping Iris off the sauce. “Hey, Iris, you sure look pretty in that funeral dress! Good thing, too, since you need to wear it all the time, seeing as everyone you ever loved keeps dying. It doesn’t show off your rack to the same advantage that mine does, of course, but then what would, right?”
Spider-Man, 5/19/12
Thanks, Newspaper Spider-Man, for neatly encapsulating your narrative philosophy for new readers. “I don’t need any amazing, exciting powers beyond those of ordinary humans to dislike that creep! Sullen, baseless jealousy will be the engine of this plot, not a superheroic battle to save mankind!”
Pluggers, 5/19/12
An archaic, failing bureaucracy is pretty much the only thing tethering pluggers to the mainstream of human society, and once that tether snaps, things are gonna get real depressing real quick.
Mary Worth, 5/19/12
The sad thing about the awkward, violent gesture in panel one is that Wilbur thinks it’s a hug.
Let us waste no time in sending you off into your weekend, COTW-style!
“Dawn Weston got dumped by e-mail? Is this 1998? The modern young person dumps a mate by pinning pics of dead flowers, rotting fish, and a lolcat saying ‘It’s over!’ to their Pinterist page.” –Ed Dravecky
The runners up — also extremely hilarious!
“To investigate this crime thoroughly, Mark will need to go to both Gene’s fishing camp and to the victim’s as well. But maybe he was actually shot by yet a third rival? Better check out all the fishing camps, throughout the entire northern part of the state! Of course, to alleviate suspicion of what he’s doing there, Mark will have to go undercover by actually renting a boat and going fishing, at each site. Boy, won’t Mark have some great tales to share with Rusty when he gets home!” –seismic-2
“It appears that Gene is about to give Mark a noogie and Mark is trying to give Gene a reach around wedgie. This is the way guys greet one another. In prison.” –LoFoMoFo
“So right after ‘Get Up, Stand Up’, the radio starts to play Marley’s ‘Smoke Two Joints’. Snuffy keeps the funky dance, miming smoking a huge doobie. Because that’s totally in character, right? If this strip isn’t an insane drug vision, I’ve been reading it wrong for four decades.” –Hogenmogen
“Yes, now that Gina’s ponytail is finally going to disappear (please please), Nina’s collar will replace it in my nightmares.” –Poteet
“I do hope that Bobby and Gina have Mary back for each life decision they make to heap adulation on her again and again. ‘I know that many of you think that this new upstairs bathroom was made possible by Home Designs Ltd, but really it was Mary Worth! She made it all possible! Let us toast to her and that small pewter dish of soaps shaped like a scallop shell!’” –geekwhisperer
“It’s not Dawn. Wilbur’s toilet finally has had enough.” –imperturbe
“I suspect Dawn finally discovered Wilbur’s secret folder filled with a myriad of sandwich-related pornography.” –sporknpork
“It seems the Bum Boat’s ‘senior menu’ simply consists of putting a regular menu item in a blender, for ease of gumming and digesting.” –Perky Bird
“Oh, God … NO! Local trout have achieved the power of jet propulsion and will soon take over the world! Within minutes, they will be flying through every restaurant in the city … unless they already are.” –Spyglass
“I married your father because of his excellent hearing. But to answer your actual question, I’ve had about seven hundred cocks inside me.” –Doctor Handsome
“Did anyone notice there’s a number on the door behind Wilbur? ‘310.’ It’s pretty obvious Wilbur is inside his apartment, standing in Dawn’s bedroom door. So why would he have numbered doors in his house? Some kind of bizarre organization scheme. He has it catalogued in a ledger. ‘Room 310. Empty mayonnaise jars. Room 311: Bathroom.’” –Cloudbuster
“A good way to honor your mom’s sacrifice is to live your life to the fullest. Or, you could do the direct opposite: whine about death and spend time with Tommie.” –S. Stout
“Yes! I understand! You killed your mother, I killed my mother, Margo killed her mother! You think you’re the only one who killed their mother! Quit whining!” –Terrapin
“I like how Thel is standing about thirty feet away from her brood (including a toddler), her attention steadily focused elsewhere as the throngs of humanity surge around them, as if daring danger-strangers to just come and grab a brace of stubby-limbed malaprop-spewing munchkins on the way from Panda Express to Banana Republic. Maybe next time she can smuggle a sign out of the Kompound saying ‘FREE CHILDRUN PLEAZ TAKE 4,’ and bring it to the parking lot at Candy-Dispensing-White-Van-Drivers-Con ’12.” –fillmoreeast
“Can we talk about how great the expressions on the Keane kids are? They look so world-weary and callous as a result of their hopes and dreams never being fulfilled. Even when in agreement about their mother (who they all resent now), they cannot seem to snap out of their mass depression for even a moment. Wes Anderson, if you’re looking to revive The Royal Tenenbaums in a different format, look no further.” –Irrischano
“I love the generic travel agency in the background of this very obvious re-run strip. What is that store next to it, I wonder? A one-hour photo? A video rental store? A newspaper publisher?” –The Silent Penultimate Panel
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